Riders politely but firmly asked the board for better on-time performance, challenging the agency’s numbers that said trains have an on-time record in the mid-90 percent range. Commuters also told the board to pay more attention to commuters’ complaints made on social media, especially on Twitter.

Carlos Costa of Woodbridge, who said he switched to the North Jersey Coast Line from the Northeast Corridor line, told the board they need to add a commuter to their ranks.

Then he told about his three-hour delay on March 13 and criticized how the agency handled it.

“Commuters understand that things happen, but you should have told us to look for alternatives. I could have worked from home,” he told the board. Costa also asked for more cars on rush-hour trains so riders could have seats.

One rider, dressed in a pinstripe suit, told the board how a conductor pushed him out of a train, telling him there was no more room on board.

“I wanted to do something physical,” said Ryan Kuiken of Ridgewood. Instead, he filed a complaint with NJ Transit. “The response was so lackluster, I lost all faith.”

Kuiken told officials he still sees that conductor on the job, after Transportation Commissioner James Simpson asked if he got a response. Simpson asked Executive Director Veronique Hakim to look into the incident.

Kuiken was among many who asked the agency to take complaints from riders made on Twitter more seriously.

“We’re live-tweeting our problems. Many of us don’t have alternatives to NJ Transit (for commuting to and from work),” Kuiken said.

Commuter Matt Walters read some of the 6,000 commuter tweets he said he’d collected about commuting on NJ Transit. Several people spoke of getting in trouble at work for arriving late because of a delay on NJ Transit.

One commuter complained to Walters about spending two hours to get home one night on NJ Transit, even though he lives seven miles from New York City, he said. Walters also said in the last three months, seven people tweeted that they moved from New Jersey to New York, citing commuting issues on NJ Transit as a factor in their decision.

“On behalf of 800 followers, I request NJ Transit file tweets as official complaints,” Walters said. “Some are humorous, but many are serious problems that need to be addressed.”

After the meeting, Hakim said she wants to “look into Twitter comments and the use of Twitter and what NJ Transit can do to respond to that information.”

Hakim said when tweets come in they get filed as customer complaints. NJ Transit has two full-time employees handling social media and responding to inquiries, said John Durso Jr., NJ Transit spokesman.

“If it is an issue relating to a train or a bus, we may ask for specific information such as a train or bus number so we can investigate,” he said. For formal cases, Twitter users may need to provide information such as name and contact information so investigators can follow up and get more details about a complaint, he said.

The meeting represented a rare chance for commuters to talk to board members. Usually, the board meets at 9:30 a.m., but Hakim and Simpson instituted two 6 p.m. meetings this year. Hakim said she believes the evening meeting was a success.

“Having two meetings in the evening gives a different base of customers an opportunity to come in and it’s important to us to hear from them,” she said.